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demmiblue

(36,841 posts) Sat Sep 3, 2016, 07:49 PM Sep 2016

Jarring art exhibit confronts the harsh reality of female genital mutilation

Source: Mashable

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London-based artist Aida Silvestri has created a jarring series of "sculptural photo-works" to raise awareness of female genital mutilation — any procedure that "intentionally alters or causes injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons," according to the World Health Organization. She was inspired to tackle the issue due to her personal experience with FGM as a girl.

In 2015, she began an in-depth investigation into the practice, interviewing and photographing East African women living in London who, like her, had been cut.

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Unsterile Clinic confronts viewers with this issue using startling visuals to provoke a conversation. Each work features a woman's portrait in black silhouette, with a folded leather piece depicting a vulva stitched onto the mouth of the portrait — a nod to the forced silence around FGM. Each leather vulva, in distinct tones to resemble the participants' skin color, reflects the particular type of FGM endured by the women depicted.

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FGM can have devastating consequences for women and girls who endure it, including complications during childbirth, infertility, infections, loss of sexual pleasure and even death. Anti-FGM advocates argue that it has no religious or cultural significance, but rather serves solely to exert power over a woman's sexuality and body.